


Dancing in the Dark

by Waistcoat35



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 20s Music, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a chance of fluffiness later in the afternoon, Implied GoldGraves, Jazz - Freeform, Light-Medium Angst, Multi, Music, Or possibly Newtina, Piano, Squib Character, classical, pianist, whichever you want
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 14:32:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: In one of MACUSA's back rooms, there's a piano.(Or, Six Times They Played Alone and One Time None of Them Had To)





	1. Reggie

**Author's Note:**

> I love how I go from looking up actual 20s songs and their lyrics to just including modern day stuff. Enjoy!

In the back room, there is a piano. Nobody knows how it got there, not definitely. If you ask President Picquery about it she gains a distant, pained look in her eyes and murmurs something about the MACUSA Christmas Ball of 1923, a lot of gigglewater and Abernathy placing a bet that he could perform “Chopsticks” while intoxicated. If you ask Mr Graves, he will clench his jaw, growl something about prohibited alcohol and demotions and then pretend that he has a meeting. If you ask Abernathy himself, he will go very red and claim that he remembers nothing but a splitting headache the next day and being sent to work in Wand Permits for a fortnight.

As nobody is sure where the piano comes from, nobody knows what to do with it either – so it stays in the dark, among buckets and mops and discarded gigglewater bottles. It has probably been forgotten. Many didn’t know it was there in the first place – or they pretend they don’t, anyway.

Reggie probably visits the most – he plays little and often. He’ll pop into the back room for some polish or a spare duster, but he’ll stay a while to sweep off the paint-covered sheet concealing the instrument and run careful, calloused hands over ivory keys. ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is his poison of choice, though he also has a soft spot for Claire de Lune – his mother always liked that. What started as experimental tinkling becomes – well, actually quite good. When his hands touch the keys he produces the magic that failed to come from within at an early age – hence he is a janitor, not an auror. That’s saved for dreams.

He plays standing up, knowing that if he seats himself on the worn leather footstool he will not want to get up again to continue his nightly rounds. He polishes it after every session – nobody knows it was ever in use. Well, almost nobody.


	2. Tina

Tina uses it next. She’s coming back from lunch break, and somehow she’s managed to get mustard on her blouse. Darned hot dogs. She ducks into the back room just before Abernathy rounds the corner and sees her – a narrow escape. She uses _scourgify_ to remove the greasy yellow stains, and is turning to leave when she sees a polished black corner poking out from a sheet. She still has twenty minutes until she’s expected back…

Once again the cover is swept off, and she perches herself on the edge of the footstool as if afraid to relax too much; somebody could walk in. She takes a quick glance to make sure that the door is indeed closed, before playing a jaunty round of ‘The Entertainer’, simply because she can. She’s growing tired of being told what to do, lately – her boss hasn’t been acting quite himself. Given that she and Percival are close, it hurts. She plays progressively louder and rebellious tunes, leaking the playfulness and careless abandon she must keep so carefully restrained at work, or, heaven forbid, in Wand Permits. The playing grows more subdued when the first notes of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” waft out. ‘Stardust’ soon follows.

(She doesn’t visit again until three weeks later, with a moping sister, missing boss, a dead boy ~~she was supposed to protect~~ and a friend across the sea. ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ is all she plays. She would like to say that she doesn’t cry. That would be lying, somewhat.)


	3. Queenie

Queenie finds out about it after a while – hears Tina thinking about whether to visit the room again soon. The next time she brings coffee to the office, she pops in for a few moments. She settles herself on the stool, leaving the empty service tray by the door. She decides on a cheery tune – she’s been needing one lately. She glides elegant fingers along the grand piano – imagines glowing golden chandeliers and plush seats, like the show their mother had taken her and Tina to when they were young.

But now they’re grown, and Queenie is the one playing onstage. The room echoes with the closing bars of ‘The Best Things in Life Are Free’, and Queenie takes the tray back downstairs to her desk in Wand Permits. (She comes back after Tina does, and ‘She’s Like a Swallow’ is accompanied by cut-off sobs and tears splashing onto ivory. Jacob will never play by her side.)


	4. Fontaine

Fontaine, one of the junior aurors, finds it when looking for an escaped Occamy. (Mr Scamander’s back in town, so what with paperwork and the nightmares she’s been having – along with everybody else who lost things when Grindelwald hid in h ~~er friend’s~~ their boss’s skin – she can count the hours of sleep she’s getting on one hand.) She peeks into the room, doubting she’ll find anything…

The paint sheet is off. Not only is it off, but it’s shredded and bedraggled, a few iridescent feathers caught in the loosely woven fibres. The piano is not damaged – but the lid is down when it shouldn’t be, and she can hear muffled bumps and squeaks coming from within. She remembers something from Mr. Scamander’s book about growing and shrinking to fit enclosed or available spaces. Sighing, she picks up a bucket and picks her way over to the instrument.

With the help of her coat, a spider and an old tin bucket, the creature is soon caught. After checking the interior of the instrument for scratches, she sweeps the sheet back over it, mangled though it may be, and ignores the pang of longing that runs through her. She should get the Occamy back to Newt. Besides, she’ll be back; she’s going to be staying at the office tonight.

If Reggie hears a piano rendition of ‘Waiting For a Train’ that night as he sweeps the hallways, he never mentions it. But if he stops working and listens outside the door when ‘Young and Beautiful’ comes on, well – he can’t be blamed. Whoever can mimic the Bryan Ferry Orchestra with a single instrument must have started young.


	5. Credence

It takes Credence a long time to get up the courage to actually _play_ the piano – he’s spent far too much time gazing longingly at it, imagining what it must feel like to trail only the very tips of his fingers along the top (so as not to leave fingerprints on the unblemished black varnish.) Eventually he glides the barest edge of a knuckle across the keys; he presses too hard and the sudden shrillness coming from the instrument startles him into avoiding the back room for some time.

Today is different.

Mr Graves was found today. Tina has been crying. She denies it – but he knows. Queenie has made herself scarce – Newt has avoided his eyes more than usual. Jacob’s cheeriness falls flat. It’s as silent at the Goldstein apartment as it is by Percival’s hospital bed – a wordless struggle is underway in both.

Before the obscurus, before Mr Scamander, the only music he’d known was the bell-toll, the church organ, the saxophone busker on 5th Avenue. Then Queenie had taken him to a concert – and he’s fallen in love with the piano. If he only knew how to play. But lessons are expensive and so he hasn’t asked – he’ll just have to try and figure it out.

So he practises, and he practises, trying the keys and figuring the notes out – until he can shakily play one song by ear, that he’d heard on the radio. And it’s enough to sum up his feelings – towards ~~Graves~~ Grindelwald, at least.

_Take me back to the night we met_

_And then I can tell myself_

_What the hell I'm supposed to do_

_And then I can tell myself_

_Not to ride along with you_

_I had all and then most of you_

_Some and now none of you_

_Take me back to the night we met_

_I don't know what I'm supposed to do_

_Haunted by the ghost of you_

And so scarred hands ghost over polished keys. And he begins to heal again.


End file.
